Ocean & Earth Sciences

The Pacific Ocean has by far the largest number of seamounts, distinct features of volcanic origin that rise off the seafloor but do not break the surface, of any ocean on the planet. Earlier this month, the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Hawaiʻi Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL) teamed up with the non-profit group Conservation International (CI) to dive on seamounts near Hawaiʻi—two of which have …

Chris Wall, a University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa marine biology doctoral candidate was selected for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Science to Achieve Results (STAR) graduate fellowship program. With this honor, Wall received a $132,000 award to support his research on the impacts of near-shore stressors, such as nutrient pollution, and global stressors, such as rising seawater temperature, on coral reefs. “While …

A new paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research shows that sea level rise in the northern Indian Ocean rose twice as fast as the global average since 2003. This represents a stark contrast to the previous decade when the region experienced very little sea level rise at all. The science team led by Philip Thompson, associate director of the University of Hawaiʻi Sea Level …

A small group of Homo sapiens left Africa around 100,000 years ago in a series of astronomically-paced slow migration waves and arrived for the first time in southern Europe around 80,000-90,000 years ago, according to a new study published in the journal Nature. These results by a team of researchers from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa challenge prominent anthropological models that assume a single …

A partnership between the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and Tohoku University, one of Japan’s top research universities is redefining disaster science. The collaboration began shortly after the March 2011 disaster events that struck Japan, including the powerful earthquake that triggered a devastating tsunami. The UH Mānoa College of Social Sciences and the School of Ocean and Earth Science Technology’s Hawaiʻi Sea Grant program have been working with Tohoku ever …

One of the most repeatable, predictable phenomena of atmospheric winds threw scientists for a loop February 2016 by breaking its long-standing routine. However, a study published last week in Science presents a mechanism to explain this unexpected and unprecedented disruption. The international group of atmospheric scientists was led by Scott Osprey of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science at the …

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the investment of $26.6 million by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) into 45 projects that will spur innovative conservation initiatives on both rural and urban farms across the country. The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Water Resources Research Center (WRRC) received nearly $1 million of this funding to conduct a three-year research project focusing on …

An international design challenge has been launched to rehabilitate a critical Oʻahu watershed that contains one of the nation’s most polluted bodies of water. During the September IUCN World Conservation Congress, University of Hawaiʻi President David Lassner announced the Make the Ala Wai Awesome Student Design Challenge, with up to $10,000 in total prize money for the winning entries. “We …

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa assistant professor Daisuke Takagi is the recipient of a National Science Foundationgrant “Hydrodynamics of outer flow at low Reynolds numbers for locomotion and flow control” from the Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental and Transport Systems division for $297,941 (starting June 15, 2016 for a duration of 3 years). The Army Research Office grant “Modeling the collective behavior …

Ten scientists from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa partnered with ten members of the Honolulu Printmakers in the ArtSci 2016 Where Art and Science Meet exhibition, September 7–30 at the Honolulu Museum of Art School. The scientists and artists shared processes and insights into their respective practices to create the pieces for the exhibition. With a variety of printmaking techniques …